The sun was shining when they took their leave of New Orleans; the depressing drizzle of the past few days had let up and everything was so pretty and sparkling with droplets of rainwater that had not yet burned away in the sun. They caught the first of the pale, pearly morning light and flung spangles every where, and Ella looked wistfully behind as they rode out of town. The sky over the bayou was tinged pink and orange and to the whole scene was a mysterious, dreamlike, pleasant air. It had become familiar in these past days, this strange, foreign city; she was loath to leave it and set out to something that was wholly unknown. Ella drank it in with avid eyes. She felt a feeling akin to the one she had had upon leaving Atlanta. She felt, in the cockles of her heart, that she would never see this place again, and for some reason, the prospect saddened her.

But as they road out past Ponchartrain and through the plantation parishes, her spirits lifted. Everywhere were new sights and sounds and smells and it was good to be close to the land again instead of cooped up in the city. They passed plantation after plantation—large, grand houses, nothing like the burned out shells of buildings that Ella knew by heart from her youth in Clayton County. These plantations might not be as neat and clean around the edges as they had been in ante-bellum times, but they were whole and standing, and the fields were green with new plant life.

"How?" she wondered aloud, looking with awe at the houses and fields. "How did they come to be spared when so much of Georgia wasn't?"

Buck grinned.

"I guess Sherman liked Louisianans better than any other type of Southerners," he said, "Because he didn't take no great efforts to mess with them. It was enough to the Yankees to buckle their pride—and pride's worth more than anything else to a Louisianan. The Yankees buckled their pride so bad that they figured to leave them their homes and fields as a consolation prize."

Ella felt a pang. Tara, which had once been one of the most staid and prestigious plantations of Georgia, would look positively two-bit, like a one-horse farm, beside the sprawling splendor of these Louisianan palaces. Tara! Tara! Oh, funny how she hadn't thought about Tara the whole time she had been away from it until now. Funny, that she did not miss it more. She had once thought that the red dirt of that place ran in her veins; now she supposed she must be far more flesh and blood than she had supposed. To be away from it so long and not even miss it—not really!

But she was part-Irish and the granddaughter of a man who had started in this country as a farmer, when all of the pomp and circumstance was stripped from his position. She could not help gawking a little at the vast, well-tended fields. Tara produced cotton enough, and Ella had always looked with pride at the short, plump springing green plants, with their white treasures dangling from their branches. But those plants looked scrubby compared with the tall, leafy stalks and with the vines that scrambled and crawled over everything like kudzu. Cotton had to be cultivated; these plants looked wild, out of some forest primeval.

"What kind of crops do these people farm?" she wondered, her keen, country mind scanning the fields appraisingly.

"Sugar—and indigo," said Kin. "And tobacco, but we mostly leave that up to the folks in Virginia and the Carolinas. And some grow cotton—but not many, though the land is good for it."

"There's no better cotton land than the Georgia up-country," said Ella loyally, and Kin laughed as he spurred his horse on through the wide, shady road.

Ella had noticed how he said 'we' when referring to the Louisiana planter's class. She wondered why. Hadn't he been born in New Orleans? Did he have any ties to the planter class? But that did not seem possible. She did not know much of him but she knew that he was not a gentleman. A gentleman's son would never hire out as a cow-hand. But then, he did move with such an assured grace, and casual nonchalance, as if he considered himself in a higher strata than the others he walked among. He was a mystery, Ella thought. He was her husband, and she knew so little about him. Her husband! My goodness! She would never get over the shock of having an actual husband.

But it was not convenient to talk on the road, for they rode far apart, at times, with Buck in the front, Ella in the middle, and Kin respectfully—and with much difficulty, Ella thought—bringing up the rear. He looked as though it was hard for him to rein the horse in—he wanted to gallop.

As they moved north and west toward Texas, and the plantations and towns became fewer and farther between, he picked up his pace. The land was wide and flat and expansive and it seemed totally uninhabited. In other places it became marshy and they had to pick carefully through the bogs and swamp lowlands. Trees became scarcer, the closer to Texas they got, and the land was gently rolling. Then Kin did gallop, and Ella nudged Mr. Butler into a gallop, too, delighting in the feel of the wind on her face and hair.

They were headed for the Red River, to meet up with the rest of the drive, which was starting out from the Matagorda and heading north. It was five hundred miles from New Orleans to Red River Station, and would take two weeks to cover, moving at a fast clip. Red River! Ella did not know much about the place, but she knew it was where her destiny would begin. From Red River, she would go north, to find her mother.

Red River, Red River! She heard it in her own heartbeat, in the pounding of Mr. Butler's hooves. She laughed, because a snippet of an old song had come to her suddenly and she sang it out loud,

From the valley they say you are leaving!

We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile,

For they say you are taking the sunshine

That has brightened our path for a while.

Buck joined her in the chorus, his serviceable tenor bright and clear against the green grass and wide blue sky,

Come and sit by my side if you love me

Do not hasten to bid me adieu

But remember the Red River Valley

And the one who has loved you so true!

They did a lot of singing as a way to pass the time, since conversation was inconvenient and next to impossible. Old songs that Ella did not even remember that she knew until she found her voice joining in the words. New songs, that Kin and Buck knew, and taught to her. Ella was surprised to find that Kin had a nice singing voice, deep without having the burr of a bass, clear and high without matching Buck's bright tenor. Kin sang in the same way he seemed to do everything else—matter-of-factly, a little unwillingly, with complete and utter nonchalance. If anyone complimented him on his voice he went gruff and would not sing again for the rest of the day. But Buck sang with gusto, like he did everything else, and accepted compliments voraciously and appreciatively. If one was not offered, he tended to be grumpy, and he would not sing for the rest of the day, either.

He knew a lot of songs—"From hanging around sporting houses," he grinned, and Ella was surprised when he sang,

"When first I saw sweet Peggy,
'Twas on a market day…"

Ella went on to surprise herself by joining in:

"A low-back'd car she drove, and sat
Upon a truss of hay."

And together they went into the chorus:

As she sat in the low-back'd car,
The man at the turnpike bar
Never ask'd for the toll,
But just rubb'd his owld poll

"And looked after the low-back'd car!" Ella finished. "Buck, how do you know that song?"

"Learned it at me mither's knee," he aped in a passable imitation of brogue. "How did you come to know it?"

"I don't know," Ella confessed. "I just do. My grandfather was Irish—peasant Irish, Rh—I mean, my stepfather—used to call him. But I believe he was a great, brave man."

"My own folks are Irish and none too wealthy themselves," said Buck affably. "Kin here is descended from the royalty of England and French nobility besides—everyone in Louisiana is descended from French nobility, Ella. But as for me, I wouldn't like to be anything but Irish."

"Neither would I," said Ella staunchly, forgetting that the Robillards had been enobled by the king of France in the days of Charlemagne.

"Crazy fools, the Irish," said Kin, and flashed them a broad grin.

In the gloaming hour between day and night; when it was precisely dusk, sometimes Kin and Buck would favor her with a 'cowboy' song. It was on a windswept, eerily yellow evening that she first heard a tune that was so mournful that it sent chills up and down her spine and made her heart ache. The two voices in harmony twined together like gold and silver threads, into a tapestry that was haunting in its beauty.

Whoopee ti yi yo,
Git along, little dogies,
It's your misfortune
And none of my own;

Whoopee ti yi yo,
Git along, little dogies,
You know that Wyoming
Will be your new home.

"It's sad," Ella said, feeling a peculiar tug at the strings of her heart; she suddenly missed home, missed Tara, missed Atlanta and the kindly flutterings of Aunt Pitty, even missed Uncle Rhett and his stern, ill-humored ways. God's nightgown! She even missed Suellen and Sally, and that was saying something. And she missed her mother. Missed her in a visceral way that made her want to throw back her head and howl. All because of a song—a few notes strung together out loud.

"Most cowpoke songs are sad, honey," said Buck agreeably.

"But why?"

"Because so many cowboys are melancholy folks. They're up the trail and away from home for so many months out of the year that they can't be quite happy ever, not really."

"Why do they do it, then?"

"Because it's in their blood. Or because they're running away from something. Me, I can't go back to Dallas ever again because there's a whore there that would cut off my pecker and feed it to her flock of geese. That's what it's all about."

Ella slanted her eyes toward Kin, and saw his profile silhouetted against a sky that was blood-orange and purple with the setting of the sun. He had the face of a Roman emperor, a face that belonged on an old coin, she thought, or in one of those books that Uncle Ashley Wilkes used to read all the time. And she wondered, as she studied him, if cowboying was in his blood—or if he was running away from something, too.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One night around the campfire, when their dinner of tinned pork and beans had been duly warmed and eaten, they all sang 'Lorena,' Ella's song, for she was called Ella Lorena after it. By the time they had finished, Buck was weeping openly.

"Why, that song always gets to me," he said apologetically. "My first whore was called Lorena. She was a pretty, yaller-haired thing like me. She always wanted to go to San Francisco—I wonder if she ever made it there."

Ella would never get used to the way Buck talked about whores. She had lived sixteen years in a world where that word was never uttered, not even by the coarsest men. And now, it was talked over casually. It was obvious that Buck himself was well-acquainted with the ins and outs of sporting houses. Ella wondered if all men were and just didn't say.

"Did you—Have you ever," she asked Kin, hesitant and stumbling, "Have you ever been in a—a sporting house?"

Kin was silent and poked at the fire with a stick. "I reckon I have," he said, finally, "Seeing as how I was born in one."

Ella's mouth fell open with shock. Did he mean—that his mother had been—a bad woman? Oh, how dreadful! He was the son of a bad woman and she, who had married him, was the bad woman's daughter in law. Oh, how many things she did not know about him, the man she had married! And any of them might be as bad as this. She resolved not to ask any more questions, and closed her mouth with a snap. It was better not knowing.

But Kin did not seem at all perturbed. He merely smiled, and then whistled another verse of Lorena, as the fire blazed and burned, and the sparks flew upward.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After that, Kin took to calling Ella 'Lorie.'

"Ella doesn't suit you," he said. "It's a prissy name and you're not prissy. Lorie is much better. 'Ella' is a girl who wants to be a lady—who does crewelwork and lowers her eyes in the presence of men-folk. Any girl that rides as good as you shouldn't be called Ella—no, you're Lorie, through and through. You're not a lady."

It was one of the few really nice things he ever said to her, and Ella took it to heart. Oh, he wasn't mean to her! But he so rarely said anything about her character that when he gave her any kind word or compliment she treasured it, and eagerly endeavored to make him give her another. She knew that she wanted to please him—but her brain had never turned itself to the matter of why she should want to do it. She only did.

And if he thought she were a good rider, she would ride all day and not say a word in complaint, though at night her legs and back ached so much that, in the privacy of her tent, she could not help crying a little into her bedroll. The sun, which had been so pleasant when they left New Orleans, was now a menace to her—it beat down so unmercilessly all day until she felt as though she would melt or scream in frustration. Her horse's rollicking gait, which had seemed so easy and gentle in the paddock when she had first rode him, now was brutal and jounced her so much that she felt the movement of the horse even in her sleep.

The change that had come over her after a week on the road was startling, but not unpleasant. Despite the protection of her hat her skin had been tanned and freckles began to come out on her nose and cheeks. Dilcey would have been horrified by them, but they gave Ella's small face a character that was heretofore lacking in her soft, pliable features. Her hair, which she wore in a long braid down her back, had been reddened by the sun so that it gleamed. Her eyes were more alert in the wide open than they had been in town. If Ella had had a mirror, she might have been pleased to see the change that had come over her features, but she had no mirror and she did not notice the things that the other did—Buck, appreciatively, and Kin, from behind guarded, veiled eyes.

She only knew that her legs ached, her shoulders, the small of her back, her arms, from gripping the reins all day long. Her hands were calloused despite her gloves, and they ached, too. She thought back longingly to the bath she had had in New Orleans. If only she could soak in a bath, now! She wiggled her aching toes and cursed the lack of bathtubs along their route.

Not only did she ache but she felt positively grimy. She washed her face and hands from her canteen every night, but the dust that they kicked up every day seemed to have settled over every part of her body, permeating her clothes. At times she even tasted dust and she suspected her lungs must be coated with it as well. A bath! A bath! My kingdom for a bath, Ella thought.

One night they camped by a little stream and after the men had unrolled their bedrolls and gone to sleep by the fire, Ella slipped out of her tent and headed stealthily toward the watering hole.

There was a full moon, and it cast a weird light that was almost as bright as the light of day. Ella laughed to herself as she slipped out of her shirt and her dungarees, standing only in her combination. What a bright moon! She was glad there was no one around to see her, for they surely could have, in the light of such a silvery moon.

She hesitated a bit before slipping out of her shimmy and casting it aside. She covered her nakedness with her arms and laughed again. Well, she wanted a bath, and whoever heard of taking a bath with your underwear on? And there was no one around to see. The glow of the campfire seemed far away and she could faintly hear Buck's snores emanating from that direction.

The water was cold, so cold that it brought tears to her eyes but she waded in and noticed deliciously how her aching muscles were soothed by it. She felt so clear and nice as she submerged herself and came up again, spluttering. All the grime and dust of the past week was washed away and she felt so nice and clean that she could not help splashing about a bit in the shallows of the sluggish black river

"Get up—and get out of there, now."

Ella started, jumping about a foot in the air at the unexpected sound of a voice. She scrambled up the muddy bank and gathered up her chemise, holding it to her chest. Her heart pounded, and she thought of her pistol, back in her tent. Oh, how terrible! The bright silvery moon had gone behind a cloud and she could not tell who it was that stood before her in the inky blackness. She opened her mouth to scream—but would they hear her if she did?

"Don't scream. It's me."

"Kin! How dare you frighten me like that?"

"That frightens you? I should think you should be more frightened to go for a midnight swim in the pitch darkness. Do you even know how to swim? Suppose you had been taken away by a current? It's been storming all day up the river and flash flooding could happen any moment."

Far away, on the horizon line to the north, Ella saw faint streaks of lightning and heard the muffled roll of thunder. She hadn't noticed it before. To his upbraiding she could only say, rather lamely,

"I can swim. Uncle Will taught me how in the Flint back home."

She was suddenly conscious that she was naked; the moon came back and in the half-light she saw Kin's eyes stop on her bare form for a second before politely looking away. She pulled her shirt and pants on, not bothering with the chemise, glad it was dark so he could not see that her face was burning with embarrassment.

"Well, you've never swam in a river like this. These Louisiana rivers are half-bayou. There's water moccasins—and dark vines under the surface that can pull you down. Not to mention alligators."

"Alligators!" she scoffed, wrinkling her nose at his joke.

Kin bent and picked up a stick from the ground and tossed it into the water. Two or three dark objects, which Ella had surmised to be sunken logs, lowered beneath the surface with bubbling aplomb. She could see them move away, dark shapes on darker water, and felt slightly sick.

"I only wanted a bath," she said in a small voice.

"Sometimes I think you only use about half your brain, Ella," he said, and she cringed, for he had not called her Lorie this time, and the effect was not lost on her. A long silence stretched between them.

"I'm sorry," she said finally, hanging her head, ashamed. Tears threatened, but she would not let them come. "I guess I have a lot to learn."

Something in his face had softened, and he said, "It's all right. You do have a lot to learn, but you will learn, and that's what important. The next time you want a swim, tell me or Buck and we'll scout about for a safe place. Now come along back to your tent."

She gathered her shimmy and went with him. He started to put his arm around her in a companionable way, to show that there were no hard feelings, but stopped, remembering that only a moment before she had been completely unclothed. She might resent the familiarity after that. He looked away as he thought of the brief glimpse he had had of her slender white form and then moved away from her, opening the distance between them instead of closing it as he had previously intended.

Ella, too, was thinking of the way his eyes had lingered on her for a split second before he turned away. Oh, how embarrassing for him to see her body that way—but then, Ella was conscious that she had a very nice body, and she had seen in his eyes before he turned that she thought so, too. She wondered why she did not mind about that more. But she didn't.

"I guess Kin is right," she thought, as she snuggled into her bedroll, feeling nice and clean and sleepy, now. "I'm not a lady. Any of the old Atlanta cats would have screamed and then fainted and drowned in being caught in such a position. But I didn't—and wouldn't dream of doing such a fool thing. I can take whatever is thrown at me and then some."

She was still so very young and she had not yet learned that it was possible to be a lady and resilient at the same time. The society in which she had been raised still put a high premium on feminine vulnerability and helplessness. Ella had tried to cultivate these things without realizing or knowing why. But it was not who she was. For many years there had lay dormant in her an untested strength, a determination as strong and unbreakable as steel, a willful perseverance. Now it was coming to the forefront and the old, womanly ways were dropping away. She was becoming the kind of woman on whom the future of the great nation would be based: flexible, adaptable, strong, courageous.

Ella did not know any of these things. She only knew that she had done and said and seen so many things in the past few days that she could never really be able to call herself a lady, like Mrs. Picard and Mrs. Wellburn were, like Aunt Melly had been. And her mother. For surely her mother had been a great lady. And now she, Ella, would never be.

"Oh, I hope Mother won't mind," she thought drowsily, and then she fell asleep.